VII. MACUGNAGA 373

nothing in the Daguerreotype to help, or alarm me; and inquired no more concerning it, until now at Venice I found a French artist producing exquisitely bright small plates, (about four inches square,) which contained, under a lens, the Grand Canal or St. Mark’s Place as if a magician had reduced the reality to be carried away into an enchanted land.¹ The little gems of picture cost a napoleon each; but with two hundred francs I bought the Grand Canal from the Salute to the Rialto; and packed it away in thoughtless triumph.

142. I had no time then to think of the new power, or its meanings; my days were overweighted already. Every morning, at six by the Piazza clock, we were moored, Harding and I, among the boats in the fruit-market; then, after eight o’clock breakfast, he went on his own quest of full subjects, and I to the Scuola di San Rocco, or wherever else in Venice there were Tintorets. In the afternoon, we lashed our gondola to the stern of a fishing-boat, sailing, as the wind served, within or outside the Lido, and sketching the boat and her sails in their varied action,-or Venice, as she shone far away beyond her islands. Back to Danieli’s for six o’clock table d’hôte; where, after we had got a bit of fish and fillet of anything, the September days were yet long enough for a sunset walk.

143. A much regarded friend, Mr. Boxall, R. A.,² came on to Venice at this time, after finishing at Milan the beautiful drawing from Leonardo’s Christ, which was afterwards tenderly, though inadequately, engraved. Mrs. Jameson was staying also at Danieli’s, to complete her notes on Venetian legends:³ and in the evening walk we were usually

¹ [See the letter from Ruskin to his father (October 7, 1845) in Vol. III. p. 210 n.]

² [For Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Boxall, see Vol. XIV. p. 8 n. The drawing of the head of Christ was engraved by “F. C. Lewis, engraver to the Queen,” and published by Colnaghi, March 18, 1850. The print bears the following inscription: “Divinum illud Leonardi opus Mediolani in pariete pictum vetustate corrumpi non æque ferens Hanc effigiem lineis ut potuit exprimendam et in æs incidendam curavit Josephus Maberly Anglus.”]

³ [That is, notes on Venetian pictures in illustration of her Sacred and Legendary Art, published in 1848.]

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